Kidney transplant black market in Myanmar

 BBC Burma has the story (I guess they haven't updated their country name...no doubt they still refer to the Gulf of Mexico, too:) 

The story is about Burmese people purchasing a kidney from other Burmese people, after which they both travel to India for the surgeries, which involves pretending to be relatives.

Myanmar villagers reveal 'desperate' illegal kidney sales, BBC Burmese 

"Zeya, whose name has been changed to conceal his identity, knew of local people who had sold one of their kidneys. "They looked healthy to me," he says. So he started asking around.

"He is one of eight people in the area who told BBC Burmese they had sold a kidney by travelling to India.

...

"Buying or selling human organs is illegal in both Myanmar and India, but Zeya says he soon found a man he describes as a "broker".

"He says the man arranged medical tests and, a few weeks later, told him a potential recipient - a Burmese woman - had been found, and that both of them could travel to India for the surgery.

"In India, if the donor and recipient are not close relatives, they must demonstrate that the motive is altruistic and explain the relationship between them.

...

"He says the broker made it appear as if he was donating to someone he was related to by marriage: "Someone who is not a blood relative, but a distant relative".

...

Zeya says he was told he would receive 7.5m Myanmar kyats. This has been worth somewhere between $1,700 and $2,700 over the past couple of years

...

" he flew to northern India for the operation and it took place in a large hospital. ... he stayed in hospital for a week afterwards.

...

"The BBC last heard from Zeya several months after his surgery.

"I was able to settle my debts and bought a plot of land," he said.

But he said he couldn't afford to build a house and had not been able to construct one while recovering from the surgery. He said he had been suffering from back pain.

"I have to restart working soon. If the side effects strike again, I have to deal with it. I have no regrets about it," he added.

He said he stayed in touch with the recipient for a while, and she had told him she was in good health with his kidney.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, she told the BBC she paid 100m kyats (between around $22,000 and $35,000 in recent years) in total. She denied that documents were forged, maintaining that Zeya was her relative."

 

HT: Colin Rowat

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Earlier, also on the Myanmar/India black market

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Cash for kidneys report in the Telegraph

The dark-ship black market for sanctioned oil

 Here's a paper that fills in the holes left in ship transport logs when they turn off their transponders. That happens a lot--more than 40% of global seaborn oil seems to be in the black market avoiding sanctions.

The (Un)Intended Consequences of Oil Sanctions Through the Dark Shipping of Sanctioned Oil
Xiwen Bai, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, Yiliang Li, Le Xu & Francesco Zanetti, NBER Working Paper 33486  DOI 10.3386/w33486  February 2025

Abstract: We examine the rise of dark shipping—oil tankers disabling AIS transceivers to evade detection—amid Western sanctions on Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Russia. Using a machine learning-based ship clustering model, we track dark-shipped crude oil trade flows worldwide and detect unauthorized ship-to-ship transfers. From 2017 to 2023, dark ships transported an estimated 7.8 million metric tons of crude oil monthly—43% of global seaborne crude exports—with China absorbing 15%. These sanctioned flows offset recorded declines in global oil exports but create distinct economic shifts. The U.S., a net oil exporter, faces lower oil prices but benefits from cheaper Chinese imports, driving deflationary growth. The EU, a net importer, contends with rising energy costs yet gains from Chinese demand, fueling inflationary expansion. China, leveraging discounted oil, boosts industrial output, propagating global economic shocks. Our findings expose dark shipping's central role in reshaping oil markets and macroeconomic dynamics."

 

"from 2017 to 2023, an average of 7.8 million metric tons of crude oil per month were exported via dark ships from Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Russia, accounting for approximately 43% of total world seaborne crude oil exports recorded in UN Comtrade data.  

...

"China is the largest importer of crude oil transported by dark ships from sanctioned countries. Between 2017 and 2023, China’s imports exceeded 97 million metric tons, accounting for 15% of total sanctioned oil exports. Other notable importers include South Korea, India, Egypt, Turkey, and Russia itself."

US Ranks Highest in Global Overdose Deaths

 Here's a sobering news article from JAMA:
US Ranks Highest in Global Overdose Deaths by Samantha Anderer,
JAMA. February 7, 2025. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.0240
 

"A recent Commonwealth Fund report confirmed that the US overdose death rate remains far higher than in any other country. In 2022, the US overdose rate was 324 deaths per 1 million people, 1.5 times greater than in Scotland, the second-ranked nation with 219 deaths per million people. Although Scotland saw fewer deaths in 2022 than in previous years, rates in the US continued to climb, up about 53% from 2019. For the third consecutive year, drug overdoses claimed more than 100 000 lives in the US, according to provisional 2023 data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The Commonwealth Fund report cited inadequate investment in treatment and prevention strategies as a major contributor to the discrepancy between the US and the rest of the globe. Only 11% of people in the US diagnosed with opioid use disorder reported receiving substitution therapy in 2020 compared with 87% in France and 51% in Scotland. "

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Here's the report:

U.S. Overdose Deaths Remain Higher Than in Other Countries — Trend-Tracking and Harm-Reduction Policies Could Help by Evan D. Gumas

"Provisional data show that drug overdoses in the United States claimed more than 100,000 lives for a third consecutive year in 2023 — a more than 50 percent jump since 2019. By a substantial margin, the U.S. has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the world, followed by Puerto Rico — a U.S. territory. And while Scotland and Canada, the second- and third-ranked countries, saw decreases from 2021 to 2022, rates in the U.S. have remained high. Our analysis, using the latest mortality data from 2022, compares the U.S. overdose rate — 324 deaths per 1 million people, or almost 108,000 deaths in 2022 — to dozens of countries from across the globe and finds that the U.S. unequivocally has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the world.

The U.S. can learn from other countries by tracking emerging trends and adopting comprehensive approaches to prevention and treatment that prioritize public health and harm reduction.

 

 Source: Evan D. Gumas, “U.S. Overdose Deaths Remain Higher Than in Other Countries — Trend-Tracking and Harm-Reduction Policies Could Help,” To the Point (blog), Commonwealth Fund, Jan. 9, 2025. https://doi.org/10.26099/ppdk-qy10